Friday, November 25, 2011

Bank Management should Create Good Culture

Most of the big value advances are given green signal by top ranked officers and are processed at branch or regional level after telephonic pressure or verbal instruction from some or the other top ranked officers or some minister or some other VIPs.

When advance goes bad it is low level officers who are made scapegoat, it is new branch head who is posted there is made responsible for lack of monitoring , but never the officer who is main culprit behind the bad assets is punished, rather such officers are promoted and given cream posting.

Message is clear, never bother for advance going bad but bother for senior officers who visit the branch or regional office.

Officers who earn wealth , huge wealth from corporate can only spend lavishly on big bosses. Officers who have always ill earned money in their pocket can arrange five star stay, five star hotel and red carpet welcome for bosses and arrange high value vehicles for bosses who visit their office.

Big bosses move from one place to other for getting warm welcome and not for doing something good for the bank.

“Hanthi ke dant dikhane ke kuch aur hai , khane ke kuch aur hai.”
This is an old but popular proverb.

Everyone in the field knows very well what top ranked bosses want and what they are expected to do. I do not talk about some exceptional devoted officers who are very few among a crowd of corrupt officers.

Obviously NPA has to rise, lending has to come down, gross NPA ratio has to go up and profit has to fall.

Most of senior officers who appear to be serious on assets going bad are shedding crocodile’s tears for rising trend in NPA and they are least bothered for recovery but bothered for their safe retirement. In this process a good number of senior executives have already retired from the bank leaving behind a plethora of bad assets worth hundreds of crores of rupees.

Now when vigorous follow up is become inevitable under pressure from Ministry of Finance and RBI, new incumbents at Branch or RO are facing the brunt of top management for none of their fault.

There is an old proverb in Hindi,

“Khet Khaye Gadha, Mar Khaye jo Raha”


If bankers really want to send positive message to ground level officials and other employees , they have to punish officers who for their vested interest lent money to bad borrowers, who gave verbal instructions for sanction of finance to bad borrowers for self interest and prove it that bad officers will not be spared , how big he or she may be.

Senior Officers who have been isolated from mainstream despite good knowledge , sincerity and honesty have to be brought back in the mainstream and given due recognition . Only honest and sincere officers should be made Branch or Regional Head , and not those who are number one flatterer.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Treat Customers as GOD and staff as DOG

When politics is good and political leaders are good, there is no doubt that governance is good and administration is good. If politics is dirty and political leaders are dishonest, bankers will also be dishonest and corrupt and in such position there is no fun in talking of ideals on this forum.

Politics and banks are inter-related to each other. All top leaders are indulged in flattery of political leaders. Will u please agree on bitter truth and ground reality? Junior officers are busy more in keeping their bosses happy than in keeping their safe and making it stronger and shining like Diamond.

After all politicians dictate their whims and fancies on big bosses and then big bosses follow the same line of action and prevail upon their subordinates, rightly or wrongly.

If ministers ask for branch expansion, top executives of banks become mad in opening new branches and cause huge losses.

When ministers ask for waiver of loan and compromise, they make a mockery of waiver and compromise and cause much huge harm to recovery culture.

When there is talk of loan melas in political circle, our bosses become irrational and mad in disbursal of loan. Everywhere madness to become number one in the eyes of ministers, not number one for profitability of bank or welfare of staff. Why?

It will not be an exaggeration to say that PS banks are meant for distribution of government sponsored pension, salaries of government employees. MANREGA payments, opening of no -frill accounts and similar other non productive services. It is willingly or unwillingly, one can answer to oneself. But it is true that good customers are shifting to private banks.

Bank officials are focusing on a few customers who use to offer gifts from time to time. Top executives are busing in polishing top 200 customers. None is bothered of middle class and poor class who contribute retail business. If one makes a thorough analysis of customer profiles he will find that number of person having deposits less than Rs.15.00 lacs has gone away from PSBs and adopted Private Banks. Who has caused such mismatch? Bulk lending is supported by short term liabilities. Deposits from government department and cash rich PSUs attract most of branch head and regional heads. Why?


Now some of bankers have started debate on Facebook and some of them are using it for marketing bank’s products and policies. Some of them do not like other subjects and hence remove the person from the group who writes other than bank issues. They should know that After all face book is a forum for expression of ideas and exchange of ideas, national or international , personal or social but not at all a forum for flattery to bosses or marketing of a product.

I suggest these over ambitious facebook participants that they should bear with all fair and good views of all from all walks of life and do not concentrate of only business al where. Political views are at least better than non-sensical chatting initiated by some of participants just to pass time. Facebook cannot be used to teach staff and to ensure execution of policies.

Hundreds of circulars are issued form all banks daily containing all policies but bank staff seldom read them , they do not know how to store them for future use .Most of the branches are manned by incompetent persons. They try to do what they are told by their bosses and not what they are ethically and morally supposed to do. They want message in a few lines, in a few words which may explode their mind like nuclear bomb. Face book participants do not like to read even my one page or two page articles, they chat only for chatting purpose. There may be few negligible exceptions to it.

When sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of bank staff are married to that of politicians, they have no option but to talk of politics. Bank staff and bank as a whole is wedded to politics. If you visit office of secretariat of ministers in Delhi or in secretariat of any state government, you will come across a lot of bankers moving from one corner to other. Rest I do not want to explain.

So far as sharing of knowledge is concerned ,banks are not allowed to share confidential policies of any bank on Face book which has gone in the hands of hackers and contents of which is followed by foreign enemies every now and then. None of government department carries out debate and discussion or marketing on Facebook. Why banks only?

I appreciate some of views and concerns expressed on FB by some seem-to-be loyal staff and give full value to it. But I ask them to discover the reason and the person who caused accumulation of malady in banks. Please let me know who has spoilt the banking industry, especially public sector banks.
Why are Banks in general coming out with bad results.
Does it not show that banks and its executive in general are victim of dirty politics going on in the country?

Does it not prove that bankers committed sin in the past and now they are facing the consequences?

Those who committed sin are now preaching sermons to others. Will it be effective?

Why NPA was concealed for last two decades and why not efforts were made so much sincerely in the past to recover the money form defaulters as it is being done now.

I appreciate the apprehension expressed by some of bankers. Due to dirty politics in promotion processes applied by top executive during last one decade, only corrupt officers have gone up and they have left behind a wave of frustration and detachment.

When old and experienced men are discarded and isolated in any bank and new and young boys without any banking ideas are picked up from the market or from among the juniors as per whims of the executives and recruiters, there is no doubt that bottom-line of an organization will become weak. In past, there used to be family culture in bank, now it is government culture: officers do what is need to please the bosses.

When bosses built pressure on lending and non categorization of bad assets as NPA, officers in general were busy in reckless lending and concealing all bad assets.
There is no manpower planning at all in any bank. No honesty and transparency is left in promotions and transfers. Interview gives unlimited powers to accept or reject any staff.

There is mad rush for branch expansion in the name of financial exclusion. Most of the branches do not care for staff because they are constrained to do so due to acute shortage in their branch.

When parent of a child start crying and crying for help only , not rushing to Doctor for appropriate treatment there is no doubt that the child will collapse sooner or later.
Public sector Banks in general are on ventilation and often need government help for capital infusion or for payment to staff, for wage revision, for payment of pension etc.

Now preferred choice of bank is to recruit MBA from colleges and make them scale III and allow existing experience seniors to stink and spoil their life. You can imagine the taste of fruits produced by such polluted trees. An organization cannot prosper where old people are disrespected. Family prospers when Youngers give due respect to elders and when merit is awarded but love is equally distributed.

It is pleasant to understand that banks have now declared all bad assets and now actual work is being done to recover the old dues. Similarly banks have to first accept that they (corrupt bankers ) committed blunder in Human Resource Management and then only they can reverse the process and cure the ailing bank. Top management has to realize that Interview is invariably used to discard good people and accept bad people to serve the malicious goal of the Interviewers.

When top executive person preach sermons for welfare and for extension of best customer service and to delight the customer,they do not think that bank staff are their prime customers and when prime customers are not happy they cannot dream of long lasting relationship, sustainable business and ever yielding advances or rise in CASA or rise in overall business accompanied by rise in profitability and stable PROSPERITY .

When staff are good and happy they will take care of customers and when good customers are respected , Banks has to get desired results without imposition of unrealistic targets and without use of firing in meetings.